During pharmaceutical testing, materials are typically situated in a sealed environment defined by a testing device during the testing process. One device which enables creation of a sealed environment for pharmaceutical testing is a half suit isolator. During typical use of such an isolator, an access door or hatch to the isolator is opened, the materials for conducting the test are inserted into the interior of the isolator, the hatch is then closed and the testing process is started.
At specified times, it is necessary to conduct measurements to obtain data about the sealed environment for the purposes of, e.g., satisfying HEPA certification requirements. For example, it is often necessary to measure particles in the sealed environment at various stages during the testing process, e.g., after the completion of each of a series of tests being conducted during the testing process. To this end, a sampling device or probe, such as an isokinetic probe, is placed in the interior of the isolator and connected to a measurement device such as a particle counter.
In a conventional measurement process, after the measurement device completes the measurement and obtains data from the probe, which usually occurs during or after completion of a test in the series of tests personnel enter the half suit isolator, the probe was then repositioned and the air was allowed to settle down, and the next test performed followed by another measurement. This procedure was repeated until appropriate measurements were obtained at each probe location and after the completion of each test. As a result, the measurement phase became a rather lengthy, time-consuming and labor-intensive process.
It is therefore desirable to reduce the amount of time and labor required to obtain measurements from a plurality of probes situated at various locations in a sealed environment.